Vin Diesel as Baby Groot in 'Guardians 2': No Artificial 'Sweeteners' to Do the Voice

Perhaps no star of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is more excited about the sequel than Vin Diesel. He’s spent the past few months making clear how pumped he is to once again give voice to Groot — now Baby Groot, after events at the end of 2014’s original film. And despite having addressed the issue numerous times, both Diesel and Guardians writer-director James Gunn keep getting asked the same question: How did baritone Diesel voice such a “goofy, adorable” creature?

“There’s a tiny amount of processing that we do on a few of our characters, but it’s very little. It’s mostly just Vin’s voice. He’s able to, you know, speak in a much higher register than he normally does… Vin’s an actor! One of the reasons I was interested in working with Vin is I like Vin’s early [work], when I first saw Vin come around in movies like Boiler Room. He’s a real actor! He’s become this sort of larger-than-life action figure. But he’s actually a real actor who can do a lot of different things. I’d love to see him take on some more difficult roles in his career, because I think he’s more than capable of doing that.”

Back in September, Gunn tackled this persistent topic on both Facebook and Twitter (see below), making clear that Diesel can do a variety of things other than be (and sound like) himself.

Not only will Diesel handle Baby Groot’s voice, he’ll do it in as many as 16 languages, as he told Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show back in October, as well as Collider. Check out a fun behind-the-scenes video of his in-studio sessions for the first film:

Thus, the verdict is in — when you hear Baby Groot in Vol. 2, it is Vin Diesel. You can hear him in all his “I Am Groot” glory when the film hits theaters on May 5.